like a moth to flame
by candycity
Summary: - He is eight years old when he forgets how to be human. ( NatsuMikan, as they grow up and fall in love. )


He is eight years old when his sister turns his hometown into a sea of flames.

The fire is a deep red in the moonlight, flames dancing towards the sky in a mockery of grace, but he doesn't think it is beautiful. Heat prickles at his palms, sweat pools at his forehead, and a mixture of dread and fear churns in his stomach.

He runs towards the village, and he sees his sister, small and fragile and pale and terrified, and he knows, instinctively, what he has to do.

He arrives at the Academy in a blaze of glory and shame, and they see him, whisper behind curved palms: _that boy, yeah, I heard he set his town on fire – that's scary! – we'd better stay away –_

He looks down at his palms, and they are deceitfully smooth and pale: a child's hands.

That night, he looks around at the cold, meaningless grandness of his room and he feels a surge of emotion for his Alice that he's never felt before. It is fire in his veins and rawness in his chest, and suffocating tightness that wraps itself around his heart, his lungs, till his breathing turns ragged and his nails dig into the flesh of his palms.

_Hatred_.

:

When he wakes up the next morning, he no longer feels the raw burn of rage, the icy chill of fear, the dull, bitter ache of unfairness. He no longer feels anything.

:

[ He is eight years old when he forgets how to be human. ]

**:.:**

If he is the unrelenting, fierce blaze of summer heat, then, she is the gentle coolness of spring rain.

She walks into the room, fresh-faced, a timid smile painted across rosy lips, and he thinks with a hint of bitterness, _stupid girl – coming to the Academy – it's nothing to smile about._

And, with an almost sadistic eagerness, he waits for her to break.

They tell her to get lost, that she doesn't have an Alice, that she'll never belong. And after that, they sneer at her, call her weak, stupid, _No-Star_. They beat her down day after day after day, but she doesn't break, doesn't crack, doesn't even falter.

In a way, she is almost as unrelenting as he is.

Because she always smiles, and he hates her, hates her_, hates her_ because he doesn't understand _why_.

:

But without his knowledge, his frozen heart begins to thaw. And with every sunny smile that melts the ice in his veins, with every simple, honest word that extinguishes his raging fire – the bruised, bleeding organ within his chest begins to beat, once again.

:

[ He is ten years old when he remembers how to feel. ]

**:.:**

She tries to be friends with him, and he thinks what an idiot she is for wanting to get close to a ticking time-bomb.

"Play with fire and you'll get burned, girl," he warns, and his palms prickle with that familiar heat: a flame dances in the pale smoothness of his hand, a deep, warning red.

_Get away. Don't come close._

With a defiant lift of her chin, she says: "I'm not scared of you,_ Hyuuga Natsume."_

The flame grows, spirals toward the sky; but her eyes are without fear. She takes a step towards him, and places a hand on his shoulder.

A foreign warmth surges throughout his body, and the fire dies to nothingness.

She smiles at him, and stretches out a hand. It is not like his, not pale and smooth and deceitful: there are faded calluses and lines that tell stories of hard work, of honesty, of accidents and mistakes. It is a reminder of her sheer _humanity_.

Like a moth to a flame, he draws closer.

And he takes her hand.

:

[ For the first time, he thinks that maybe, he'll be okay. ]

**:.:**

Slowly but surely, he grows closer with the strange girl with the smiles like sunshine.

Her voice is light, and the pleasant lilt of her Kansai dialect reminds him of the countryside. She never seems to stop talking: about this thing that Tsubasa-senpai told her, or that school event that she absolutely can't wait for, and how pretty the cherry blossoms are in the school.

He always tells her to shut up, but secretly, he thinks he could listen to her voice forever.

And when she does something that is so ridiculously innocent, so painfully kind: like bringing him soup when he falls sick, or helping him take notes when he skips class – he feels this strange, bittersweet ache in his chest that he can't seem to drive away.

She draws him out of his shell, and it's a slow and painful process: he's always terrified that if she sees the darkness in his heart, she'll leave. She'll run away, just like all the others.

But she stays, and her light spills into his darkness, and her sheer presence is like an antidote, a draught of forgetfulness that lets him escape the bitterness of reality.

"You're not a robot, you know, Natsume," she reproaches after a particularly exhausting mission, and she reaches over and gently brushes the hair out of his eyes. "You're only human, just like the rest of us."

_Only human_. His heart twists painfully, and he holds on to her words, so carefully tossed out, like they are a lifebuoy and Natsume is a drowning man.

:

[ She always knows exactly what to stay. ]

**:.:**

He is sixteen years old when he realises that she's no longer a child.

The sharp angles of her ribcage and her elbows and her knees have filled out, softening into feminine curves at her waist, her chest, her hips.

He's not the only one. The other boys also begin to take notice of Sakura Mikan, and he hears snatches of conversation – t_hat Sakura has really become something, huh_ – and his chest tightens.

Mikan gets asked out on her first date by a guy from the neighbouring class, and it takes all of Natsume's willpower to restrain the urge to set fire to his hair. Ruka notices the death glare, of course, and he grins.

"She's really beautiful, now, huh," he comments. Natsume looks away.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says.

He tries to distance himself from her, avoiding her gaze and refusing to wave when the pass by each other on the corridors, and the ache in his chest turns into a dull pain when he sees her face fall whenever he ignores her.

She finally corners him after two weeks of his ridiculous behaviour. "You're mad at me," she says, and he refuses to meet her eyes.

"I'm not mad."

"Then why won't you look me in the eye?"

He forces himself to meet her gaze, and flinches: she's never been the type to hide her emotions, and the intensity of her stare is painful to watch; he averts his eyes again.

"_Look at me_!" she cries, and he realises: Mikan is _hurt_.

Of _course_ she is. _You idiot, _he thinks to himself.

"I'm sorry," is all he can say, and her eyes widen in surprise – Natsume _never_ apologises.

"What's wrong?" she asks, more gently. He looks at her, wide eyes framed with long lashes and full of concern, cheekbones painted across with a light blush. She looks exactly as she did, six years ago: she hasn't changed at all.

_She's always been beautiful to him. _

"Nothing," he says, as his heart twists in his chest and his head pounds in protest, "nothing at all."

:

[ He is sixteen years old when he realises that he's fallen in love. ]

**:.:**

Sakura Mikan proves to be an unconquerable fortress, and though she goes through boys like boxes of her favourite Howalon candy, she never stays with anyone for long.

Quite honestly, Natsume would be lying if he said he wasn't secretly glad about that.

By the time the Christmas Ball approaches, she's established a reputation as a heartbreaker: which, of course, is total bullshit, seeing as Mikan would sooner rip the wings off a butterfly than deliberately hurt anyone. Nevertheless, her reputation serves only to enhance her attraction, and the day of the announcement of the dance alone, she gets just as many invitations as Natsume himself.

As the days pass, Natsume gets increasingly sullen and withdrawn, to the point that even the ever-patient Ruka gets exasperated.

"If you don't like them asking her out," he reasons, "why don't you just invite her yourself? Besides, it's not like it's a given that she'll say yes to you, you know."

"I will not," Natsume says flatly, and Ruka gives him a look that carries a clear message: _you're an idiot._

The day of the dance approaches, and although Ruka finally manages to convince Hotaru to be his date, Natsume remains stubbornly dateless.

"She's going with Yuu," Ruka announces, the night before, and Natsume chokes on his dinner.

"I don't care," he finally says, after recovering. "She can go out with all the guys in the school, it's none of my business."

"She practically has, you know," Ruka comments, noting with amusement how Natsume's expression immediately darkens. "Except you. I wonder why?"

That effectively puts Natsume in a bad mood for the rest of the night. He has half a mind to skip the dance altogether, until an announcement by Narumi over the speakers cheerily reminds them that _attendance to the Christmas Ball is compulsory, so enjoy yourselves, everyone!_

He spends most of the day sulking, and Ruka comes over an hour before the dance to force him into a suit. "Comb your hair," he demands with an air of authority, and then adds, with a somewhat evil glint in his eye: "All the guys Mikan went out with put in some effort into their appearance, at least."

"Like I care what Mikan does," Natsume grumbles, and then spends the next thirty minutes scrambling around his room in an attempt to recover his long-lost and only bottle of hair gel.

He strolls into the room behind Ruka and Hotaru, maintaining an air of perfect unconcern, and then proceeds to spend twenty minutes pretending to be interested in the hors d'oveures, his eyes flickering every thirty seconds to the entrance after Hotaru not-so-politely tells him to get lost.

When he tries to casually ask where Mikan is, Hotaru just smirks. "Go find her yourself, Hyuuga," she tells him, and then leads Ruka onto the dance floor from which she absolutely refuses to budge.

After a while, he gives up and goes outside. To his surprise, he notices a familiar figure underneath the Sakura tree.

It's Mikan. Her dress is pale pink (_naturally_), and accentuates every feminine curve that Nature has blessed her with, before spilling to the ground like a waterfall of cherry blossoms. Her honey-brown hair is curled and twisted into an elaborate knot at the back of her head. Her face carries slight traces of make-up: a little brown eyeliner, a hint of mascara on her lashes, a faint blush on her cheeks and touch of red on her lips.

He feels strangely breathless, and for a second, contemplates turning in the opposite direction.

Of course, she catches sight of him. "Natsume," she says, as a means of greeting, and offers him a small smile, "I thought you'd come here."

"Where's Yuu?" is all he asks as he settles down beside her, distinctly aware of her presence. She shrugs.

"He's sick, poor guy," she says.

"Poor guy," he echoes with perfect insincerity. She rolls her eyes.

"What're you doing out here, anyway?" she asks, and he lifts a shoulder in a careless shrug.

"Just wanted to give the lovebirds some space," he lies through his teeth. Mikan gives him a look, and she laughs.

"You're such a liar."

"And you're an idiot."

"But you love me."

"Yeah, I do," he says without thinking. She turns to him in surprise, and he feels his cheek start to burn.

"You love me," Mikan repeats, her tone making it almost a question. Natsume grits his teeth.

"Forget it," he says, in a tone of forced calm, "Ignore what I said."

"I won't."

He turns to her in surprise, and her eyes are bright with determination.

"We've played enough games, haven't we?" she asks, softly. "I've had enough."

"Enough…?"

In response, she leans in, and he sees, with startling clarity, every eyelash, every freckle, every imperfection.

Before he can react, her lips are on his, soft, light, and hesitant. His body seems to be frozen, his face unnaturally hot, and his heart pounds against his chest so loudly he's sure she can hear it.

When she moves away, she gives him a heartbreakingly beautiful smile, and it draws him out of his stupor.

"Idiot," he murmurs, still half in a daze. She tilts her head to the side in confusion.

"If you're going to kiss me," he clarifies, "do it properly."

Her eyes flash with a familiar defiance, and then they are kissing, really kissing, and he can feel the warmth of her skin and smell the fragrance of her shampoo, and there is nothing else in the world but her, her, only her.

They finally separate, and he feels a surge of almost irrational emotion, and he thinks maybe it could be happiness.

"Mikan," he says.

"Yeah?"

"Be my date for the Christmas Ball?" She laughs, a clear, melodious sound in the quiet of the night,

"I thought you'd never ask," she says, with a mischievous smile, and she casually slips her hand into his, making his breath catch in his throat. "Oh, and Natsume?"

"What?"

"I love you too."

:

[ He is sixteen years old, and he knows, as long as she's beside him:

he'll be okay. ]


End file.
